Girlkind: Fanci Review

New girl group Girlkind under Next Level Entertainment just debuted with a hip-hop concept. It’s nice to see a girl group debut that avoids the cute trope, because there seems to be a chronic overflow of such girl groups in K-pop these past few years. Girlkind, at the very least, has the opportunity to stand out with their debut single “Fanci,” while many other girl group debuts are getting lost in the cute shuffle.

The problem is that “Fanci” doesn’t live up to the concept’s potential. There’s nothing of substance to hang onto in this song. The closest thing we get to a hook is a vocal repetition of the word “boy” in the prechorus, but the melody is too watery and drawn-out to build up any momentum. The brutally hollow “We’re the girls with the fancy what” of the chorus can’t even be called catchy—the words don’t follow much of a rhythm, and the repetition of “what” at seemingly random moments pushes the refrain over the border from boring into annoying. The instrumental could be worse, but the issue there is that Girlkind is billed as a hip-hop group, and this is EDM. With all these blocky synths, an instrumental has to have some sort of driving tune, but the composition here is totally aimless.

One thing we can say for this girl group is that their choreography is super cool, and with a better song, they could probably really kill their concept. Instead of trying to hop on the future bass trend, their agency should give them music that’s as unique as the group is supposed to be. Dreamcatcher, for example, debuted with a decidedly un-trendy high-paced rock sound last year and have developed a small but devoted fanbase. That’s because they stood out. Girlkind has the opportunity to do so as well, if they quickly make up for the flaws of their debut with a solid first comeback in a few months.